World War Sea
Recent footage of orcas ramming fishing boats has given some pause for concern - has our old friend the sea finally turned against us? If the sea creatures have decided to declare war on us, what would their course of action be? Would they succeed? And how can we best fight back?
In this podcast, join us for a maritime thought experiment where we analyse a hypothetical battle between humans and sea dwellers. We discuss biology, Abyssal and Hadal zones, shipwrecks, amphibians, water deities, global warming, robotic augmentation and shark attacks. Finally, we share our best aquatic experiences.
A few things we mentioned in this podcast:
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast, produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts, we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Nick Hare, Chris Wragg and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. And this week we're discussing the revenge of the sea. Nick, killer whales, discuss. Well, they're living up to their name, aren't they? So they are, the orcas are striking back at last. They've had enough of us doing things like fishing and sailing around in there. Putting all our poop in the water. Yeah, exactly. And quite rightly. Stealing their babies. You might think that they have a point. But anyway, they are. They should stick to the somersaults. They're now ramming boats. And this apparently is taking off all over the world. There are stories of orcas ramming boats, just like in that film, Jaws. Yes. And not just that, but you'll have heard of the Titan tragedy. The mainstream media would have you believe that this was caused by poor engineering choices and 400 atmospheres of pressure. But who's to say it's not the work of some betentacled denizen of the deep? Or a killer whale. Or another orca. I don't know if they can go that deep, but let's just go for it. Right. But the point is that the point is that the sea, which used to be our friend, has turned against us. So I want to ask the simple question, in a war twixt land and sea, who would win? And how would this war play out? And what would we do if we had to fight the fish? And what would they do if they had to fight us? By the way, I know that orcas aren't fish, right? But we need to talk about who's actually involved. They'd be on the side of the fish, probably. There you go. We need to discuss that. I know they eat a lot of them. Well, exactly. That's what's unusual about it. Yeah. Could the fish actually ever work together? Or are they? Yeah. My enemy's enemy. Right. So there's the question. World War C. Yeah. Who is best equipped to pick up that question
Speaker B:first? Well, it reminds me of a Doctor Who script. So maybe we've got a playbook already. Ah, excellent. What happens? Well, it's the sea devils, I believe. I think they reoccur. They were present in one of the earlier Doctor Whos to start with, but I think they reoccurred in one of the recent ones with Jodie Whittaker. Right. I don't know anything about them. Other than I do remember being incredibly petrified by the episode, the early episode
Speaker A:when I was little. They look like humans, but in a kind of green suit with fins on
Speaker B:their head. Exactly. Yeah. Like all the Doctor Who monsters, they look like humans with prosthetics.
Speaker A:With cricket equipment. Well, this is a good start, right? We've got to start somewhere in our fight back. So how does this help us?
Speaker B:Well, it probably doesn't really, because we haven't got a TARDIS, so we can't get out of trouble that way. OK, so first we need to get a TARDIS. Well, let's think about this in practical terms. So the sea is big. Right. Yeah. The land is less big. Yeah. So if we take sort of aquatic mammals, whales and dolphins, etc. Assuming they kind of team up because they're all basically the same. You think they're going to join in with the fish? Yeah. I think that's a fair assumption. Cetaceans get together. And I think we could probably rally the great apes on our side as well. Although they're pretty small numbers. I don't think they've had a good time at the hands of humans. I think they might demand some concessions before they join in. Probably. Yeah. Their own continent or something. Yeah. Keep going. So I was thinking in terms of biomechanically, how would we fare in sort of open warfare under the sea versus how would dolphins fare in open warfare on the land? So if we make an excursion into the sea, yeah, we'd have to get we'd have to get our diving suits and everything on. Yeah. And assuming that they're capable of it, if they wanted to invade land, they would have to put some sort of similar suit on to keep the air breathers. They breathe air like we do. Yeah. So they and they can probably operate. How are they going to do the stitching on the suit? Well, exactly. Yeah. Don't worry about that. Assuming that they can, assuming they have technology that's comparable to ours.
Speaker A:Peter, does a fish put on like, would it be a mask? Would a fish wear a mask where water flows through it? If they're on land? Something like that. Compressed water. It'd have to cover their gills as well. Actually, but it is interesting, you can't compress water, right? So you can put a lot of oxygen in a small tank and we can take it underwater. But can they put like the oxygen in the...
Speaker B:Well, I guess they just aerate the water as from the air. Oh, from the air. Yeah, of course. Like you do with a fish tank.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So there's a lot of technical questions to answer.
Speaker A:Yeah. We're going to need Peter's engineering expertise for sure, both to understand how we fight, but also how we defend ourselves. But there's a few questions we need to answer first. And I also want to pick Peter up on his chauvinism. Yeah. His Romanian chauvinism.
Speaker C:What, lumping all sea creatures in together?
Speaker A:No, he said, he said, land creatures. I just want to point out this is not, there's land underwater. If you were to interview a crab, he'd say, what do you think I'm standing on? You know, cotton wool. It's not, there's land underwater. This is about breathing air versus breathing water.
Speaker C:And whose side are the amphibians on? Right, right. So they're crucial to perimeter defence. I know, I know.
Speaker B:I see the amphibians as being the eventual negotiators when we come to a stalemate.
Speaker A:Yeah. So we need to answer this. This is very important. And then you've got things like otters and so on. I mean, you know, if you've got orcas being... Pick a side, otters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about the duck-billed platypus? I know, a nightmare. So let me just tell you the assumptions that I'm making and you can tell me if they're wrong. So we can rule out plants. Wrong. Bacteria, bacteria, they're not involved. Fungi? Fungi, what about fungi? Viruses, protists and fungi, I'm assuming, do not really have much skin in this game. In fact, they probably want everyone to lose because all we do is eat them. So they probably think the fewer organisms, the fewer animals, the better.
Speaker C:Yeah, but they live on our bodies as well.
Speaker A:They can also live on dead wood and stuff. So they're not fussed. Marine arthropods are clearly in the fish gang. I'm talking crabs, lobsters, shrimps, etc. Yeah. Fish obviously join the fish gang. Yeah. And together... What about lungfish? Together, fish and marine arthropods, this is going to blow your mind, are about 50% of all biomass.
Speaker D:Ooh.
Speaker A:Yeah. So mollusks. Now, this is a really tricky one because it's going to turn out to be quite important where the mollusks go. I'm talking snails, slugs, yeah, obviously with us, with the air people. However, squids, cuttlefish, octopus, very intelligent creatures, probably likely to form the kind of in core equivalent of the fish world. They are going to be, I would think, the leaders of the fish world. So they will join. I think all of those kind of squids and stuff, they're all going to join the fish gang. Conidarians, jellyfish, sea anemones, corals. I see them as probably, they're famously quite stupid. A lot of them don't even have brains, but they can be used for perimeter defense. Just put all the jellyfish out, you know, protecting the literal zone. What does that leave us with? We get all humans, obviously, livestock, cows, whatever use they're going to be. And then... Feed the troops. And then annelids. I think annelids, so earthworms and leeches and things will join on our side. But of course, half of annelids are marine anyway, sea worms and sea mice and so on. What I'm saying is, Fraser McGruer, is we are hugely outnumbered. They have more surface area, which they can live in, and there's way more of them. I think probably 10 or more times more biomass on their side than there is on our side. Do you want to run off and join the jellyfish? Grow yourself a backbone, okay? You're letting the side down here, Nick. Yeah, he's been very defeatist, hasn't he? Yeah, this is, yeah. It's all over the place. I think I'd start breathing water now because it's all over. Henry V at Cressy, would he have carried on like this? No. Once more onto the beach. So, you know, it's not all about quantity. Anyway, Cress.
Speaker C:So they've got more space to occupy and hold, right? Because, you know, so surface area, pure surface area, land 149 million square kilometres, sea 361 million square kilometres. But of course, there are three dimensions in the sea that you have to worry about. So there's actually... I think birds might think there are three dimensions in the air as well. Well, there are three dimensions in the air, but there aren't three dimensions in the land. Well, I suppose if you go up a mountain. It's two and a half. Yeah, two and a half. We tend not to use one of them much. Anyway, 1.4 billion cubic kilometres of water in the ocean to patrol. So that's an order of magnitude. They'll say they can't cover it all. I would say they can't cover it all.
Speaker B:Their tanks have been inherently manoeuvrous, so they don't really put much stick in controlling territory like we do, because we need to grow plants, whereas they just eat the nearest fish. So they can move around more.
Speaker A:It's true. I discovered during research that there isn't really... Like animals in the sea don't really eat plants. There's not really the equivalent of things like cows and sheep. That's what algae are, though. I know apparently Antarctic krill are like the most successful organism ever in terms of sort of numbers and biomass and stuff. But yes, that's right. So they really eat... They only eat animals. Sea creatures only eat each other. I thought that was quite interesting. Just going back one step.
Speaker B:Freshwater fish. They've got to be on their side, right? Yeah. This presents a massive risk. A fifth column of... Yeah, because rivers and things, you know, ingress into the land all over the place. And they can cause all sorts of mischief, you know, bombing dams and all sorts of things. So it would be a big trouble.
Speaker A:And also, and Peter touches on something really important, which we need to consider. Does a fish need air? No. Do we need water? Yes. No, no, but fish need oxygen. They do need oxygen. I don't really know how fish work. They do.
Speaker C:But you can't lock up all of the oxygen or you can't prevent them.
Speaker A:Well, I'm saying if they could deny us access to water, we would be worse off than if we, even if it was possible, if we could deny them access to air. Well, we can't do that. No, we can. We can't. The surface area of the water is where the oxygen comes in. We can't block all of that. But I think they can put up a passable perimeter. Again, this is this defeatist attitude of yours, which is going to be self-fulfilling. I'm sorry, I just don't know what we're going to do. No, but also famously in lakes and stuff, this is what happens when you get low, because they, is it algae or whatever, stuff goes in there, they get un-oxygenated. I think that's the technical term. Loads of fish start floating to the thing, you know. That touches on a tactic we could employ. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, where are we? Who needs to keep going? Because we've talked about who's on which side, a list of stuff. We've talked about numbers.
Speaker B:Well, I was considering sort of body forms. So we've got legs and arms and thumbs, right, which are all quite helpful. Dolphins and fish, we've all got little flippers or fins, right? Right. So we can move around relatively competently on land and in the water, whereas I suspect if you dump some whales and dolphins onto land, they'd really struggle to get about. Yeah, have you seen them on the beach? Yeah.
Speaker C:They tend not to make it back again.
Speaker B:Yeah, they tend to be pretty stuck and dead.
Speaker A:But also, yeah, we've got gravity on our side in this respect as well, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, because they can't operate outside of water. Water supports their body structure, whereas we've evolved to be on land and we can deal with that. So almost being in water is a bit of a boon, down to a certain depth, because then we get crushed.
Speaker A:Well, it's not a particularly deep depth, actually. So no, but I think this is interesting, actually, because it's where you think the sort of front line is, because I think for us, our natural assumption is the front line is the beach. That's where the water is, right? But I think if you lived in the sea, you'd think the front line was the surface of the ocean. That is how you would see it, I think. And I think it's because of this thing, like, actually, the thing that defines where you live in the ocean is up and down. So as a human, I mean, a fish would disagree with Peter, because he's saying that we are actually quite good in the water. A fish will go, what? You can go like, you can just about come into the very, very top of this ocean. But you are stuffed. All we've got to do is pull you down and you're dead.
Speaker C:Well, and also they can retreat into that space. Exactly.
Speaker A:They've got, it's very hard for us to operate. I've got a question, but then you go now, Chris.
Speaker C:Well, I was just going to say that deep water zone, which obviously was brought to a lot of prominence through the Titanic submersible disaster recently. It's called the Abyssal and Hadal zone, the deepest water, 4,000 to 6,000 metres. And Hadal after Hades, you know, because presumably that's, you know, where sort of it was considered the dead might reside in some way or that it's, you know, and I think that tells us everything we need to know that it's completely uninhabitable for us. And of course, an abyss, the word abysmal is derived from abyss. And we don't really like things that are abysmal, do we? So I think they've got a natural safe haven, I think is the sort of military term.
Speaker A:Okay. But I mean, can we not say the same about e.g. a mountain? I mean, if we're on the Pennines, what is a fish going to do? Well, we need to discuss. That's where Peter's engineering skills are going to come in. So I was thinking about tactics and strategy. This is what I want to move us on to. I mean, because first of all, just to say, I think these killer whales have been overreaching themselves, right? You think they've kicked off more than they can. Absolutely. Absolutely. So they shouldn't start what they can't finish. Exactly. And I'm feeling pretty comfortable about this. I think, you know, this is victory is clear. But let's narrow this down a bit and focus ourselves on strategy and tactics. Nick. Grand strategy. Oh, sorry. And of course, tied to that, what's our aim? Good point. What's our concept of victory, as they say, in this war, in this never-ending war on fish? So let's think from the fish point of view. They have got to neutralise our sea power first. I mean, I think that goes without saying. What do you mean? Well, neutralise our, what enables us to operate in the sea. Okay. Is, you know, stuff like ships and submarines and things. So how do you take out a submarine if you're a gang of octopuses? I don't know. But we can speculate about that. But I think that's got to be step one. If they can't do that, then, you know, we've got a standoff.
Speaker C:I think Jules Verne had an idea about that.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, you need to have a giant squid with massive tentacles. But one area I think they are going to really, the domain they're going to really struggle in is air, which, of course, is why we need the birds on our side. Because I don't, I can imagine, and Peter's going to describe a fantastical machine for a fish to move around on land. What I can't imagine is fish inventing flight. I just can't see how that would work. Flying fish? The only, yes, that's true. But the only thing, I think, the only thing I think we've, this is really, we've taken our eye off the ball. If you think back to, like, there are shipwrecks, aren't there, all over the world. If they wanted to reverse engineer our military tech, they've got a lot that they can look at. How many fish shipwrecks are on land? None. They've been very careful about revealing their technology.
Speaker B:I think a disgruntled Cormorant might secretly leak the secrets of flight to them, actually.
Speaker A:I knew we couldn't trust Cormorants. This is one of the things we need to think about is who might potentially be treacherous on our side, but also who could we tempt from the fish world? What can we offer amphibians?
Speaker B:Yeah. Not eating them, if we could start. Well, that's easy. That's just the French. We can, we can, we can sort of give them the status of an apex predator, so nothing else is allowed to eat them on land.
Speaker A:Would we stick to that? I mean, if I was, if I was an amphibian, I wouldn't trust humans. Would any animal trust humans to do what we say? No.
Speaker C:I mean, if you look at our record of treatment of animals, it's not, it's not brilliant. We either eat them, destroy their habitat, domesticate them, or other not terribly pleasant things.
Speaker A:I'm sorry to say this, Chris, but you're starting to sound a little bit like of a naysayer, a bit like Nick. And I'm frankly worried about your allegiances and your commitment to the cause.
Speaker C:I do spend a lot of time in the sea. It has to be said.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker B:Well, you know. Your DV is now revoked.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think there's a psychological element to this, which we've got to sort of think about. And I think, you know, I think if you look at the number of water deities, it's very high, very, very high. In Hinduism, each body of water is worshipped as a form of God. You think about the big three Greek gods, you know, and one of them is Poseidon, you know, and the other is Hades, who were already established at the bottom of the sea. So, you know, they've got two thirds of the top tier pantheon. And yeah, you know, lots of other major religions have their primary god as the sea god. So if, you know, if it's a sort of jihadic call to arms, then they probably got more gods on their side. So I think that's an issue. But also, you know, if you look at sort of creation myths, you know, all great sort of successful wars. You look at the American Revolutionary War or they have a sense of, you know, creation about them. And, you know, if you look at where life started, most theories point to hydrothermal vents, but there are theories that are starting to work, starting to gain not parity, but credence that actually the conditions weren't quite right in the early sea. And perhaps it was hydrothermal systems on Earth that created this. So we just need to.
Speaker A:Sounds like Earthist propaganda to me.
Speaker C:We just need to tweak the science a bit in our in our favour and make ourselves the cradle of the gift of life.
Speaker A:That's the narrative. The story is that we're simply the fish have gone astray. Right. It's our job to go in there and sort them out.
Speaker C:The apostates that went from land into the water. Correct.
Speaker A:The new orthodoxy. Quite right. Peter, anything to add at this point?
Speaker B:Well, I think we should probably raise this difficult question of, you know, how much intelligence have we got that they are developing dangerous weapons? You know, I think it'd be quite easy to not want to knock a dossier together that probably does prove it sufficiently. Pre-emptive strike. That's what you're saying. Pre-emptive strike. So, yeah, who knows what's going on down in the abyss? No weapons has ever been allowed in there. It's more about outer space than we do about the depths of the ocean.
Speaker A:That's worrying, isn't it? It's very worrying. Yeah, we need to do something about that. I mean, but seriously, we don't really know that there isn't an intelligent race down in the Mariana Trench. Mariana is a type of pizza, isn't it? Mariana Trench. Just happily getting on with stuff who might be perturbed when we start exploring.
Speaker B:Recently, they've discovered an enormous sea underneath the crust of the earth, 400 miles down, and it contains more water than the rest of the surface water. So it's an enormous sort of underground sea. I don't know. That sounds really cool, if true. It's bigger than we think it is. You know, there's lots of it. So who knows what's down there?
Speaker C:Well, I mean, the other thing is, if you think about it, in terms of encroachment, over the last 30 years, the sea levels have risen 10 centimetres. You know, that's increasing their territory and decreasing ours. So they're already land grabbing, literally.
Speaker A:You're saying global warming is basically a fish conspiracy? I think so. It could be. And we've not been vigilant enough. Now, we've talked a little bit about strategy. I want to go into the tech, how the tech works. And maybe in talking about the tech and weaponry, that sort of brings in tactics as well. Nick? Oh, well, I mean, I'm not the engineer here, but it seems to me that obviously, so I was saying, you know, they're going to try and wipe out. OK, how does a squid take out an aircraft carrier? That's where I'm going. And the thing is that have you seen octopuses and stuff when they when they get onto like a boat? They're really quite scary. They are. They're fast. They're very soft. They can squeeze into small spaces. I think a million. I think if you took a million octopuses who got their act together and knew what they were doing and what they could take out an aircraft carrier merely by you could have suicide octopuses whose job is to kind of climb into all the bits and crevices and stuff to stop all the weaponry working. You know, they can squeeze through small gaps. They can certainly, I reckon if I was swamped by 20 octopuses, I wouldn't stand a chance. I have to sort of say, like, so this octopuses thing, I presume this is you're doing as an intentional insult to octopi, right? Anyway. Octopodes, I think. So, yeah, yeah. Time for diplomacy's over. Yeah, yeah. So I, so I, so I, yeah, so I actually think, I think we're complacent about thinking that our tech is going to work against, you know, against a sort of coordinated attack by, by squid. But let's, let's assume, let's assume that I'm right. Let's consider the worst case scenario and the, the fish gang wipe out our vessels, our surface and subsurface vessels wiped out. Now they have to go into an expeditionary mode. How do they invade the world of land and air? Yes. Peter, top fish scientist. Crack. We need to think about defence and attack. So we're talking about defence really now. Let's take this.
Speaker C:I mean, should we be broadcasting this publicly given that they might be listening?
Speaker B:Do they have podcasts under the water? Don't know. It's an area of my fish science that I'm weaker on. So, well, tough one. So, yeah, we've been, we talked a bit about the sort of physiology of it. But breathing apparatus, I think, I think it's generally easier for them to build a breathing apparatus than it is for us. I think the technology they need is quite simple. They just need something that circulates the water around whatever breathing apparatus they have underwater and it's aerated by the air. So it could be self-contained.
Speaker A:So like a little motor or something which takes air in and bubbles it through the technology. They could just keep using the same water, but they just re-oxygenate. Okay. So that solves that. How do fish work?
Speaker B:Whereas the equivalent for us would be a rebreather thing that would recirculate the air. But that's quite bulky power draining equipment.
Speaker A:So can we take oxygen out of water when we're underwater? Can we somehow, like if we're talking about them using, cheekily using our air to breathe by putting it into water. So why can't we use the air that's in the water?
Speaker B:I suppose it's probably feasible, but I don't know what the relative concentration of oxygen is. You might need to circulate quite a lot of water. So again, equipment is bulky.
Speaker A:They don't need to keep going back to get new water. They can just operate indefinitely. Whereas we keep having to go back to get air. But look, look, look, Nick, you're asking too many questions and getting too many details. I'm scared. Yeah, but we need a calmer head. I just wanted to clarify how fish works. But I'll hand it over to Peter. So we've got to worry about the coming on land. It's going to be quite easy for them. I don't know how they're going to move around.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think moving around is their biggest downfall. Fish tank. So if we, if we, well, fish tank. Okay, yeah, yeah. Sorry. So I think, so, yeah, so I think the physical defence to on beach, on beaches and things to prevent their ingress might be quite simple, like a ditch or something just to stop them from. A wall. Yeah, or a cliff. Wouldn't they just head on it? So we wouldn't really need to defend against lots of parts of the world because it's already pretty rugged. They really struggle there. I think where the battleground will be places like Lincolnshire and the flat parts of land. Yeah, and Holland. And Holland. That's woken Fraser up.
Speaker A:He knows he's on the front line. Yeah. Well, you're probably looking at a similar kind of beaches to the ones that we were worrying about in World War Two. Yes. You know, you're looking for big, flat, you know, easily traversed and get from the land to a road. But, but Peter, how do they move around? What is the, what is the approach that they would take?
Speaker B:Well, perhaps some sort of robotic augmentation. We can't rule out they haven't got that tech. Right.
Speaker C:Why wouldn't they just sit in a wheeled vehicle though? But full of, with one of these water, like. Yeah. Can they? A small tank in a wheeled vehicle. I'm going to get a bit bumpy. Yeah, I think. In my spills.
Speaker B:I think, I'm assuming that their military doctrine is probably on par with ours. And we've learned that an entirely armoured battle formation is not sufficient. You need infantry and you need air in support of, you know, supporting and being supported by the armour in order to prevent.
Speaker A:They could also deploy things like suicide blue whales and find a way of launching them and dropping them just flat on us. I don't. But also sharks, great white sharks. I think the area of effect of a blue whale is still quite low. But if you had enough of them. Yeah. I think you're wasting your blue whales if you do that, because their blue whales are going to be, they're the intellectual vanguard.
Speaker C:Yeah, they're going to be better in the sea.
Speaker A:By the way, just sorry, Chris, before, and also we need to go on a couple of other ways. I've suggested a couple of other ways they might attack us, but I've been poo-pooed on those for being silly. But anyway, I want to bring you, Chris. But just to say, talk about links, that suddenly got me worried and talk about rising sea levels. Doggerland. Hello. Right. I mean, they started this stuff thousands of years ago. Yeah, because that used to be ours and now they've taken it for themselves. Yeah. Anyway, Chris.
Speaker C:Well, I was just going to say about sharks. You mentioned them. They're actually, I think sharks are overrated. So you would assume, you know, crikey, you know, they'll bring out the shock troops. Yeah, the shock troops, yeah. But actually, apparently... That's electric eels, isn't it?
Speaker A:Also, they're not overrated. I think over-serrated, maybe. I don't know.
Speaker C: here. Anyway, apparently, in: Speaker A:It's nine too many, though. We mustn't get...
Speaker C:Well, true. But that's nine out of seven billion. So, you know, I think it'll take them a while to whittle us down at that.
Speaker B:They might just be very, very well-targeted attacks. It's to say that they didn't wipe out our entire spy network. They're assassins, is what you're saying.
Speaker C: nine shark-related deaths in: Speaker A:That's quite damning, isn't it? I have heard... And maybe the other ones are false flag operations.
Speaker B:It's going in the dossier.
Speaker A:I've heard that we kill 100 million sharks a year. And I know it's not all about the numbers, but we're winning this war. 100 million? Yeah, apparently. That's quite a lot. Yeah. I'm starting to wonder... A year? I know. I suppose we eat quite a lot. Are you sure?
Speaker B:I mean, that's probably including dogfish and things. Yeah, lesser species like dogfish and things.
Speaker A:By the way, I just had a thought about potential turncoats. And actually, I'm disappointed to say they're humans. Surfers. Surfers. Famously banging on about how the sea is great and respecting it and all that kind of stuff. So just keep an eye out for those. Guys, where do we go? I think we need to move on a little bit. Well, let's talk about how this all ends. Yes. I mean, this isn't a war that's going to be won overnight. No. If it's winnable at all, which I'm doubtful about. What's the end game? What are we going to achieve? And I guess in the peace negotiations, what are we going to give? What are they going to give us? How can we build a better future after all this bloodshed? Um, for fish and mankind? I think for a start, we should maybe think about cutting down on killing all so many sharks. I think if there was a table of grievances, I'd say that we've been a lot worse to fish than they've been to us. I think that's refreshingly, you know, yeah, yeah. Honest and self aware. Yeah. So you know how, um, you know, during the great sort of, uh, sort of manmade disasters, like when we, you know, when, when, um, Europeans went to North America and just, and just, you know, sort of wiped out the disease and the war, you know, wiped out. But when, and then when we, you know, we colonized, uh, half the world and everything. And at the time we were sitting there going, you know, I'm sure some people must have said we should, this is, we shouldn't be doing this. Right. Some people must have said that. And now we look back and we go, actually, that wasn't really the best way to behave. But here we are. I feel a bit like that with fish. Like when you look at the numbers, how horrible we've been to fish. We need to look ourselves in the mirror and say it's time for us. We're the ones who should really, who should change our behaviour in all of this. Just to say, just to pose the question. I think it's time to give something back to fish. Well, I'm open to that. Okay. I hope the fish love their children too. Universal veganism might be something that we go for. Just to put it out there. I really like tuna though. What would be the result if there were no living stuff at all in the oceans? Could we get along all right without them?
Speaker C:I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. I'm going to think it through, but I suspect the whole global ecosystem would grind to a halt.
Speaker B:I suspect an analogy is sort of having a proxy war with Russia while still buying their oil from them. You know, we were dependent on the ecosystems there. In the same way that they are dependent on all the stuff that gets flushed out to sea.
Speaker A:Yeah, I just want to just ask the question. Okay. So, okay. I mean, look, if we talk about potential grievances against humanity or earth dwellers, land dwellers, there's going to be a lot. They killed Steve Irwin. They did. They did. That was a warning shot.
Speaker C:Weaver fish as well.
Speaker A:What do they do?
Speaker C:Oh, they effectively, on beaches, you know, sort of beaches used for leisure. I'm sure they do it all over the place, but it's particularly pronounced here. They bury themselves beneath the surface, sort of near where the water's edge. And they have this really, this really sharp, poisoned spine that, you know, children and other barefooted humans tread on. And it's really painful. And there's no... Stings a bit. Stings a bit. And there's no knowledge. And I don't really know. I've not looked into weaver fish. I only know it because I've seen somebody suddenly go down on the beach like they've been hit by a sniper. But it was actually a weaver fish. So it's very painful. But I haven't studied them. Yeah, I'll take you back. Fish are total shit, Ben. I don't know why they have this poisoned spine because... So we could ask them to stop doing that. We could ask them to stop doing that.
Speaker A:OK, so that's a concession they can give. We could ask them to stop, like, to tone it down on the jellyfish. Yeah, they're really annoying. We could ask them to stop crushing boats and stuff. But I think that was more like... OK, so our demands are weaver fish have got to just cut that out. And jellyfish just go somewhere where we aren't.
Speaker C:Yeah, stay away from the fringes of our territory.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah. I think that's fair enough. And what do we give back in return? I think we'd have to give quite a lot, you know, like stop killing loads of them every day and year and, you know, wiping them out. We should probably stop doing that and trawling the oceans. We should probably stop cut down on the whole shark thing, like I said. Pollution. We should probably stop the whole cut down on the pollution, pumping effluent and God knows what else into the seas. We could probably promise to continue a bit more of the global warming, although not the stuff that's going to... Enough to help the seas. But we don't want to increase its acidity. Yeah, I don't think they're fans of that. Yeah, but not so much that we kill all the coral. No. There's probably more stuff, but they would probably be...
Speaker B:Probably, I mean, it would be reasonable for them to demand that we just stay out of the ocean altogether, surface and subsurface, except for maybe scientific exploration.
Speaker A:Yeah, and as long as we keep getting the water, because we do need it. I guess that is rain, isn't it, that does that? They're not really able to switch that off. No. But yeah. And we can, as a part of the agreement, you say staying out of the water. I don't think it's totally realistic, but I mean, we can cut down on traffic in the Mediterranean and stuff like that and make them all go deaf and so on. Sure. Speedboats. Yeah. Less speedboats. I think the majority, the great majority of our imports are by sea, obviously. We do need, if they, you know, if the fish mounted an effective blockade, we'd be stymied. Yeah, we would. So I think we would need that. I think, you know, this is nice. I feel, you know, that we've proved that we're reasonable.
Speaker B:Yeah, they probably might demand that all trade sticks to shipping lanes, particular shipping lanes.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, like a corridor, which we're allowed to use. Yeah, yeah, it's fair enough. Yeah, yeah. I think we've covered this nicely. Good. Yeah. And I can see that I'm in the midst of, you know, ex-Defence Intelligence people. So it's, you know, it's clear. I think that about wraps it up, right? I think we've nailed it. I've got a question. But before we do, any last comments? Let me think of a question, unless you guys have got one. Best fish you've ever eaten. I could do that. Seems a bit insensitive, given that we've just talked about how it's time to start being nice to fish. Yeah. I mean, I don't actually have an answer to that. Yeah, great. I've got a question that will encompass that. So best watery experience. Best water related experience. Nick. Well, I'm going to go with, apologies to all our fish listeners. But I do want to answer the question about best fish ever. Because when I was in Japan, I was in this place where they had this sea bream festival. And basically they managed to use like every part of the sea bream. And so we had sea bream, I think sashimi. Then there was sea bream that you kind of dipped in soup to cook it a little bit. And then at the end, you ate the soup. And the thing I was most impressed by was they took the whole skeleton of the sea bream, dusted it in kind of flour and deep fried it. So it was like a crisp. And you might think fish bone crisp. I know, because it's going to be cartilagey. Really? Yeah, it's really like, it just was delicious. So yeah, thanks, sea breams. Your sacrifice was not in vain. I did really enjoy it. So maybe we can have that as an addendum in the peace agreements. We can still get to have it. Yeah, yeah. One sea bream, a few sea breams a year. Yeah. That's what we want. He's virtually a fish.
Speaker C:Yeah. I mean, I do spend a lot of time in the sea, sea swimming, paddle boarding, surfing. So I'm a big fan. So if I were denied the sea, I, you know, perhaps I need to be more respectful and appreciative of them allowing me to share their domain. Because, yeah, I love going in the sea. Generally, I don't have a specific experience. I sympathize. I did nearly drown once, but that wasn't a great experience.
Speaker B:So not drowning is probably the best experience.
Speaker C:Anytime I've been in the sea and not drowned, it's been excellent. Thanks, fish, for allowing Chris to not drown.
Speaker B:Peter? Not really. I mean, I'm definitely more of a land lover than a sea person. I'd much rather be up a mountain walking or mountain biking than the sea. I've always found it, always been a bit distrustful of the sea.
Speaker A:And now we know why. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a good answer in itself, because the best thing about best water experience, not being near it. Yeah.
Speaker B:Never really liked beach as much, hate sand. And I definitely get that sort of anxiety about the deepness and not knowing what's below me when I'm swimming in deep water. It's a primeval thing, I think.
Speaker A:I'm like Chris. I mean, I'm a water lover. I like being in it, like being around it, near it. I like drinking it. Yeah, good stuff. The whole lot. In North East London, there's a place called Ironmonger Row, OK, where you will find the Ironmonger Row baths. And they're old fashioned kind of Victorian type baths, which haven't been ponsified. Really kind of like working men sort of baths. All chaps together. All chaps together. Without their chaps on hand. Yeah. And what's great is I don't think we do, because I love a sauna, we don't do saunas very well in this country. One of the things where we go wrong is you can't cool off properly in this country after a sauna. Except at Ironmonger Row baths, because if you do it properly, they've got an ice cold plunge pool. Excellent. And that is my best watery experience. Great. Thank you, water. Yeah, here's to water. And all who sail in, over and around you.
Speaker C:And our Pisgine brethren. Yes, yes. We mean you no harm.
Speaker A:We mean you no harm. Thank you. Thank you, as always, to listening to the Cognitive Engineering podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer, been here with Nick Hare, Chris Wragg, and Peter Coghill of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.
